Written by Fergus, a Year 11 student from a grammar school in Gloucestershire

The symptoms started immediately. I felt sick; alarm bells bonged in my head. I also experienced what can only be described as extreme writer’s block. I would not set pen to paper – or rather, fingers to keyboard – until an excruciating hour and a half later.

Thankfully this was a mock exam, not the real thing, but I knew that my resulting marks would be dismal. However, it felt like there was nothing I could do about it.

No one contests that GCSE exams are meant to be challenging. Most students would prefer them to be easier, but we must balance the risk of leaving us unprepared for the harder exams in post-16 and -18 qualifications. However, I was likely to have found different aspects of the exam challenging than the majority of candidates. Having been diagnosed with autism (and bad handwriting), the special educational needs department (SEND) introduced a flotilla of ‘reasonable adjustments’, for which they must be praised. I was to be permitted 25% extra time and a computer to type my exams on.

Recognition of neurodiversity

I count myself fortunate. While there is growing recognition of neurodiversity, support remains inconsistent in the UK and beyond. It’s still disheartening to hear recent stories of neurodivergent students facing misunderstanding or exclusion. In contrast, my own school experience was positive—staff genuinely valued inclusivity and worked to foster it. Unfortunately, SEND staff often receive less recognition and lower pay than classroom teachers, perhaps because much of their work happens behind the scenes.

Why the importance of SEND isn’t recognised is unclear. We may point to the role of neurodivergents often not being the agents of their own stories. Although it is surely a key pillar of history that anyone can tell anyone else’s story regardless of background – as long as they are respectful – it may be suggested that the individual must tell their own story before it is communicated by the historian. This is not always so of neurodiversity. Too often, neurodivergence is presented as some kind of incurable disease – which ignores the positive effects of being divergent. I often wonder why no one ever notices that people with Tourette’s Syndrome have more empathy than average, or that dyslexia improves business skills.

This isn’t to say that non-neurodivergents – or neurotypicals (NTs) – don’t struggle with exams or life in general. That is far from the truth. However, support for students at school is more likely to be tailored to NTs, as it is often assumed that 1 or 2 students out of a class of 30 are divergent (it’s actually more like 6 or 7). With this in mind, the reader may be wondering what I tended to struggle with in the GCSE History of today.

The Struggle with GCSE

We may begin with the first question in each paper (I’m very logical), which is usually a visual source that candidates have to analyse. A common definition of neurodivergence is: I see things differently to other people. Quite literally, I will interpret the picture differently to NT students.  I might not pick up on a vital detail, or I might focus on something irrelevant and then can’t ignore it, even though I secretly know it’s irrelevant. I once sat an exam for Geography involving a map of an earthquake, with different coloured lines surrounding the epicentre to indicate its intensity. I was asked what was the first thing I noticed. My immediate response was: Ooh, look at the pretty rainbow colours.

Every question except the source is an essay question, which in itself is unfortunate. For Key Stage 3 History, my teachers constituted our tests largely from short-answer questions. This made KS3 History very popular – setting a dangerous precedent. Students are not going to take GCSE History if they find the questions dull, or confusing. It does sometimes feel like essay questions are deliberately rigid to encourage students to box events into themes. Suppose that a question was, ‘To what extent was war the main factor in the progress of X?” This seems reasonable, but what the candidate is really being asked to do is find three examples of war impacting X. Sometimes a candidate simply can’t find up to a dozen causes and group them into themes. I rarely finish essays in any exam: this is one reason why. Time management is an issue for all students, but there is a guilt associated with neurodivergent students that they waste time in exams. This will be an issue no matter what exam board you take.

Some may wonder what the students are revising for. My parents’ History curriculum focused heavily on the UK—especially the Industrial Revolution—with little regard for how other nations’ histories intertwine with ours. While my GCSEs did broaden to include Europe and the USA, most of the world was still sidelined. Asia, the Middle East, and Africa were occasionally mentioned, but not a single southern hemisphere country featured. Calling for the inclusion of my own identity without others would be hypocritical. And it wouldn’t be hard to improve—my ‘period study’ paper, covering 50 years of one nation’s history, could easily have focused on apartheid South Africa, imperial Brazil, or countless others.

In these moments, it’s often suggested to just make something up—what teenagers call “waffling.” But I’ve never been able to do that; I need to believe in what I write. This became a problem in the mock exam when I realised, I’d forgotten to revise paragraph structure. I wrongly assumed the examiners expected something overly complex, which shook my confidence and nearly stopped me from writing at all.

Praise

The SEND department was astonishingly compassionate. The team pointed out that I should tell an invigilator if I was feeling sick. They brought in even more ‘reasonable adjustments’: I was given a separate room for my exams; along with ‘rest breaks’, so if I was ever feeling sick in an exam again, I could shut the paper for ten minutes. I cannot stress enough that these were not just useful add-ons that I didn’t need. Reasonable adjustments saved a few of my GCSE exams. They ensure equality, not superiority.

The History department also went above and beyond. My teacher gave up several of his lunchtimes to talk to me, sent me practice questions and helped me realise that the paragraph structure was, in fact, embarrassingly simple. In the next round of mock exams, my marks improved massively. To all of these people I am highly indebted. I am now looking forwards to my A Levels, where I’m hoping to study History, along with German and Maths.

Sadly, some changemakers are starting to falsely represent the paperwork that allows reasonable adjustments as a waste of council money. But divergents and NT allies have fought hard for change and will not stop now. As Cressida Cowell wrote – and I have learned: ‘it is never too late.’

I dedicate this article to my school’s deputy head for pastoral and IT technicians, without whom this blog would not have been possible.